


Off-Script

by cookiesandscream



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Attempts at Communication with Mixed Success, Canon Asexual Character, Established Relationship, M/M, Service Top Martin, Trans Male Character, canon divergence in that they're happy and safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 08:38:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19147453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiesandscream/pseuds/cookiesandscream
Summary: Jon plans his conversations ahead of time, carefully constructing a plan for the best possible outcome. Jon is also prone to impulsively breaking his own protocol. Martin does his best to keep pace.





	Off-Script

**Author's Note:**

> Jon is written here as sex-neutral, and is somewhat based on my own experiences as an ace person (and a trans person, because why project by half when you can go whole-hog). Martin, meanwhile, is written as a Very Nice Boy simply because it is true to canon.

Jonathan Sims does not like uncertainty. He likes to plan, to run through every possible thing that could go wrong and then play each situation out to its logical conclusion. He wants to know before he jumps into an uncomfortable conversation that he will land on solid ground.

Unfortunately, for all his planning, Jonathan Sims is also prone to going completely off-script in the moment, and for this he has paid dearly. 

Case in point: Jon spent hours pacing back and forth, playing out how and when he would have this conversation with Martin, considering all the ways it could end in catastrophe. He decided exactly what he would say. Nothing, he thought foolishly, would go wrong. 

Instead, he’s flustered, sitting on a couch with his shirt half unbuttoned when he breaches the topic with all the grace of a beached whale.

“I don’t have a dick,” Jon blurts. Martin looks at him quizzically, his face halfway between amusement and confusion. 

“Pardon?” He asks, cocking his head to one side. His overgrown hair flops out from behind his ear with the motion.

“I mean I don’t, um,” Jon wishes, not for the first time, that his ability to pull eloquent statements from people worked on himself. He can’t force the words from his uncooperative mouth, so he pulls his shirt aside to expose the scars that sweep across his chest, hoping they’ll illustrate his point without him having to verbalize it.  
“I’m sorry, I should’ve said something before, but-”

“Oh!” Martin’s face lights with sudden understanding. “Jon, that’s fine. You don’t need to apologize.” 

“Thanks,” Jon mumbles. His discomfort must be apparent, because Martin puts a hand on Jon’s chest, fingers fanned across his sternum like the legs of a spider. His palm is warm, and the contact pulls Jon back from his swirling thoughts. Martin has done this once before, albeit through the barrier of a t-shirt, when Jon woke up in a cold sweat with a death grip on his pillow. “I figured I should at least mention it,” he finally continues, “Given our… You know. Thing.”

Truthfully, Jon isn’t sure what to call it. They’ve made out (Jon hates that phrase. The first time Martin said it, he’d grimaced, amusing Martin to no end) several times now, and he’s slept over in Martin’s flat on more than one occasion. Still, “dating” has a formality to it that scares him. 

“I suppose that makes sense,” Martin says. He sits back and pushes the errant lock of hair back behind his ear. “But you know I wouldn’t have, like, done anything unless I knew for sure you were okay with it.” 

“Thank you,” Jon says. His affect sounds flat and sarcastic to his own ear, as it always does, but he means it genuinely. The discussion around his sexuality had gone just as messily. Childish as it is, Jon hates talking about sex, hates saying the word itself, so explaining his feelings about it was, to say the least, uncomfortable. But Martin had been patient. Jon bumbled through his explanation that he thought maybe sex could be nice as a way of being close to someone, and Martin listened intently. 

“And I can still enjoy, er,” Jon had continued, wishing he could disappear between the couch cushions, “The physical aspect. It just depends on the person.” Martin had nodded and, blessedly, let the topic drop.

In the now, Martin kisses him again, pulling Jon from his humiliating memories. Like his hair, Martin has let his stubble grow out more than usual, and it scratches against Jon’s face. His hands never wander below Jon’s belt, but remain solid and warm at his waist. Eventually, they fall asleep on the couch, and though Jon does not remember taking his glasses off, he wakes to see them carefully placed on the coffee table. 

===  
Jon does a quick double-step to catch up with Martin’s longer-legged pace, and Martin wordlessly slows his gait for him. He extends a hand and smiles. Part of Jon wants to crack wise, call Martin cheesy, but the less self-conscious part of Jon knows that if he did that Martin would take the hand back. So instead, he takes it in his own. He’s taken to wearing a thin fingerless glove on his burned hand--fewer stares that way, and the scar tissue is still sensitive from time to time--so there’s little skin-to-skin contact. Even so, a happy thrill shoots through Jon’s stomach at the gesture. 

At the flat, they make it through exactly two and a half episodes of The X-Files (“I hope this doesn’t hit too close to home,” Martin had quipped as he hit play) before Martin pulls Jon into a kiss.

“What was that for?” Jon asks.

“Nothing,” Martin smiles, “You’re just- You’re cute, is all.” 

“I am not,” he grumbles, and crosses the distance between them before Martin can respond. He feels him laugh against his mouth and hook his fingers into Jon’s belt, gently but insistently pulling him closer. 

Martin is larger than Jon, both taller and broader, and Jon feels very small bracketed between his shoulders. It’s not unpleasant, he thinks, more a feeling of security than anything else, something he welcomes in the unfamiliar territory of physical affection. Though Jon has never wanted to skydive, even before Mike Crew granted him a free trial of the experience, he thinks that maybe, like this, falling becomes enjoyable with the security of a parachute. 

He’s pulled from his thoughts by something poking him in the leg. He opens his eyes, quizzical. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Martin is blushing bright enough to drown out the freckles that scatter his cheeks, “Sorry, you can just… ignore that.” 

“What if-” Jon swallows, hard, “If we don’t have to ignore it.” Martin gawks at him, still the picture of mortification. 

“If- If that’s what you want to do, but I told you we could talk about it if you wanted to, beforehand I mean, and I don’t-” 

“Sorry, I’m really bad at this,” Jon presses his hands over his face. Another conversational planning session squandered. “I try to plan out how I want to say these things and then I can’t bring myself to do it and I end up choosing the worst possible time and place at the last second.” 

“It’s okay,” Martin says, pulling Jon’s hands away from his face, “I just don’t want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. I’m kind of terrified that I’ll accidentally push a boundary and you won’t tell me.”

“I would tell you,” Jon mutters, hoping he doesn’t look as dumb as he feels. He worries at the edge of his thumb with his teeth.

“Do you actually want to keep going? You’re not just doing this because you think you have to?” Martin fixes Jon with his gaze and, while Martin may not be able to compel him supernaturally, Jon knows he is telling the truth when he nods. “You promise?” Martin asks again. Jon nods. 

“Yes, yeah, I’m sure,” he says, then pauses before continuing. He’s had sex before (albeit with mixed success), but it’s always been something done to him rather than with him. He’s never had to consciously escalate to that point himself. “How exactly do we… start this?” Martin laughs.

“I’ll lead,” he says, shifting their position so Jon straddles his thigh, “and you tell me if you want me to stop.” 

He takes Jon’s face in his hands then, kissing him with a slow, steady pressure. As for Jon’s own hands, he is unsure what he should do with them and eventually settles for grasping at the sleeves of Martin’s t-shirt. Martin kisses him again, harder this time, and Jon kisses back. This, at least, is familiar territory. Eventually, Martin moves to kiss him at the jaw, then the crook of his neck. His stubble is scratchy, but not unpleasant. Jon closes his eyes to focus on the feeling. Martin has, at some point, undone the top few buttons of his shirt, following the path of his hands with his mouth. 

When he feels Martin pull his shirt off, Jon opens his eyes. Martin is hard again, his erection having flagged during their not-especially-scintillating conversation earlier. He can see it pressed against the fabric of his jeans.

“Is that uncomfortable?” he asks, surprised to hear his own voice come out high and breathless.

“A bit,” Martin says. He’s shed his own t-shirt, revealing shoulders that are easily twice as freckled as his face. His eyes are bright and his mouth appears wet. Jon carefully pops the button on Martin’s pants and unzips the fly, hearing Martin take a sharp breath at the contact. He can feel the heat from Martin’s skin through the fabric, the contrast between the firm flesh under his hand and the softness of Martin’s stomach, and the part of his mind that belongs to the Archives hungrily catalogs the tactile information. 

In return, Martin presses the heel of his hand against Jon through his jeans, and the feeling that jolts through his body draws a gasp unbidden from his throat.

“Alright?” Martin asks, rocking his palm against him. Jon is sure Martin knows damn well that it’s more than alright, but he nods enthusiastically, his hair flopping against his forehead. Heat settles, electric, in the pit of his stomach, sparking each time Martin shifts his hand. 

The feeling stays, if subdued, as Martin moves his hand to undo Jon’s jeans the same way he did Martin’s. He presses his mouth to Jon’s stomach, just under the belly button, and pushes the waistband down past Jon’s hip bones. One hand slides down with it, the thumb coming to rest in the juncture between Jon’s thigh and his torso. Jon wonders guiltily if he should be doing more to reciprocate.

“Martin,” he says, “What do you want me to do?”

He isn’t aware of the compulsion in his voice until too late, but if Martin notices it, he doesn’t give any indication. 

“Just this is fine,” Martin says, a small smile playing on his lips, “I like to make you feel good. More so than if you were just getting me off.”

“You get off on getting other people off?” Jon asks, regaining the dry sarcasm he’d lost to the foggy heat in his mind. 

“Yeah, if you want to put it crudely,” Martin says absentmindedly. He’s preoccupied with teasing his thumb inwards from Jon’s thigh. Jon closes his eyes again, falling into the steady, rhythmic sensation. They fly back open when he feels Martin lick a broad stripe from Jon’s entrance up to his dick. 

“Oh,” he says, more surprised than anything.

“Sorry, I should’ve asked first, should I stop?” Martin’s head pops up between Jon’s knees and he finds himself picturing a whack-a-mole. 

“No, I just wasn’t expecting it,” he replies, leaning back again. Martin licks him open slowly, with an unexpected amount of deliberation. Once Jon gives him the go-ahead, Martin presses two fingers into him and he feels his breathing pick up speed. The heat in his stomach builds again, faster this time, and he realizes with a start that if Martin keeps going this is going to end sooner than he anticipated. 

“Wait,” he manages. Martin pops back up again. “I don’t want to finish without reciprocating somehow.” 

“Right,” Martin says. His face is wet from mouth to chin, and he wipes it gracelessly with one arm. Jon wonders momentarily if he should apologize. Martin shifts so he’s upright on his knees and shoves his pants from where they cling to his hips, his cock springing free. 

Jon knows, in theory, what he’s meant to do with it, but with a very real dick in front of him his mind goes blank. Martin must notice his hesitation, because he takes himself in hand and says “Here, put your hand over mine.” 

So Jon does. He follows Martin’s movements, watches with fascination the way his face contorts. He’s struck by the vulnerability implicit in what they’re doing. He’s not sure if he’d trust anyone this much as recently as the past year, but he does now, and the realization fills him with a sudden, almost painful fondness. He leans forward to kiss Martin, who tastes strange but not altogether unpleasant. 

“Hey,” he says. Martin’s eyes flutter open. “Would you fuck me, if I asked?” Martin’s eyebrows fly up, the dazed look banished from his eyes. 

“Wh- I-” he squeaks, “Are you asking me?”

Jon considers this. 

“Yes,” he says, “I think I am.” 

“Just a second,” Martin says. He fumbles for the bedside table, nearly pitching sideways off the bed, until he finds what he’s looking for. Jon hears the crinkle of a wrapper, and Martin turns to face him again. “Okay. Yeah.” 

It doesn’t, contrary to what Jon had once been told, suddenly make him understand sexual attraction. And it’s nothing poetic. But he has Martin closer to him, and that’s pleasant enough on its own, and the way it stretches and drags inside him is more satisfying than the fingers had been. He reaches down to touch himself, the stimulation now compounded from inside, and follows Martin over the edge. 

===

Jon is sure he fell asleep with his glasses on again. In the morning, though, he finds them carefully placed on the bedside table next to Martin’s own.


End file.
